PAP 024

The Poet and The Paupers

V.024


...and then where is Jemima? In those two leaves now - that is, as the tree has passed to Richard’s descendants – are printed “MATT.HY” and “JAN. 1822”. Both the name and the date are abbreviated whereas for every other child they are given in full, and the quality of the script is poor. It looks off-hand, almost careless, in its execution. Why, having laboured for months with skill, patience and love to produce a beautiful design, did Richard Lower mutilate his tree at the very end? Why could he not be bothered with the final detail? The explanation is to be found in the Chiddingly Parish Register under “Burials”. Jemima had died on February 19^th, 1820, Even as Richard had prepared to enter the last detail that would have made his concept of “the family tree” an artistic whole, that concept had been shattered.Jemima was now a “withered branch”. The “tree” no longer truly symbolised his family. Yet there was no way in which to draw in an additional branch, even if withered, no way of obliterating the now false cradle, without completely redrawing the whole picture and for that Richard could have had no heart. Who, then is “MATT.HY”? The Register of the Heathfield Independent Chapel reveals that he was “Matthew Henry, son of Richard and Mary Lower; born January 22^nd, 1822; baptised April 18^th 1822.” Was it a coincidence or a deliberate act that gave Mary and Richard another child to replace the dead Jemima? There is no way of knowing. Poor Jemima! To those who have known of Richard Lower’s family only from the information on his “tree”, she never existed. But she did exist; her birth and death are both recorded, and now the remains of that sad, almost-forgotten babe lie in the wet, heavy clay of Chiddingly churchyard.

...and then where is Jemima? In those two leaves now - that is, as the tree has passed to Richard’s descendants – are printed “MATT.HY” and “JAN. 1822”. Both the name and the date are abbreviated whereas for every other child they are given in full, and the quality of the script is poor. It looks off-hand, almost careless, in its execution. Why, having laboured for months with skill, patience and love to produce a beautiful design, did Richard Lower mutilate his tree at the very end? Why could he not be bothered with the final detail?

The explanation is to be found in the Chiddingly Parish Register under “Burials”. Jemima had died on February 19^th, 1820, Even as Richard had prepared to enter the last detail that would have made his concept of “the family tree” an artistic whole, that concept had been shattered.Jemima was now a “withered branch”. The “tree” no longer truly symbolised his family. Yet there was no way in which to draw in an additional branch, even if withered, no way of obliterating the now false cradle, without completely redrawing the whole picture and for that Richard could have had no heart.

Who, then is “MATT.HY”? The Register of the Heathfield Independent Chapel reveals that he was “Matthew Henry, son of Richard and Mary Lower; born January 22^nd, 1822; baptised April 18^th 1822.” Was it a coincidence or a deliberate act that gave Mary and Richard another child to replace the dead Jemima? There is no way of knowing.

Poor Jemima! To those who have known of Richard Lower’s family only from the information on his “tree”, she never existed. But she did exist; her birth and death are both recorded, and now the remains of that sad, almost-forgotten babe lie in the wet, heavy clay of Chiddingly churchyard.

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